Spring Front Porch, 2022

 

 

 

 

 Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

 

I am so happy you decided to stop by!!

 

Just a reminder, I will be posting on Wednesdays and Sundays every week so be sure to check back on those days to see a new post...... 

 

 Today, I will be sharing how my front porch looks this Spring.....

Minus any flowers!!!

 

Happy Mother's Day.....

 

 I will be spending the afternoon with this crew....

In the privacy of my own home as we will be ordering Take Home for Dinner.......

Even when I still was able to go to restaurants 20 years ago, I never went out to Dinner on Mother's Day!!!

Being crowded in a restaurant like a can of sardines, children running all over, having to listen to every Tom, Dick and Harry's conversation simply held no appeal to me whatsoever.....

We would go out to eat on Saturday instead....

I hope you get to spend the day with those you love....

I am very Blessed to get to do that year after year and I am so thrilled that I no longer have to work on Mother's Day as it always seemed to fall on my weekend to work!!!

Speaking of that, May 6th was.....

I am so glad to be finally able to say that.....

 

 

 And that......

 

 

And now I finally get to do what I want to do in life and not what my Mother chose for me!!!

To those that are working in Direct Patient Care, working 12-16 hour shifts, working weekends, working Holidays, working short staffed. being mandated to work overtime but offered a bonus so your employer will not have to report it, who are abused by hospital administration.....

 

Hats off to you all!!!

 

And they wonder why Nurses are leaving the profession in droves!!!

In my previous post, I shared some New Spring Buys......

 Click HERE if you missed that post.....

 

Joe did manage to find one more thing that he apparently overlooked the first time..

 

A cute Easter Garden Stake....

 

 

It came out to $1.10 with 90% of and an additional 20% off that Big Lot's is now offering on everything for a few days......

 

And now for a few Personal Notes...

 

 Food of the Week

 

 These were the Reheat and Eat dinners from the WB Scranton Penguins Food Service for this week.....

 

  

Shrimp Linguini for me...

 

 

  

Grilled Pesto Chicken with Rice Pilaf for Joey

 

 

 

 Plus an order of fries and chicken tenders that Joe made and bought for his dinner on Thursday before he went to work to help out with the Penguins End of Season Banquet as they enter the Play Offs.....

 

 

He was thrilled that he got to speak with most of the Players and wish them luck in the Play offs which started on Friday for our Baby Pens....

 

 Also an order of Funnel Cake Fries from the concession stand at the Toyoto Sportsplex.....  

 

 

 

 Joey ate those!! 

On Friday, it was Joey's treat as usual for a Friday.....

We had a Cheese Steak Pizza from Serpico's, a local eatery.....

 

 

 

 

So good!!

 

And very filling..... 

 

And the WB Scranton Penguins won their first game in the Caulder Cup play off Series against Hershey Bears!!

Should they win again against Hershey on Sunday, they will move on to the next team in the Play Offs!!

Let's Go Pens!!!

It was a beautiful day here on Thursday with temps. around 70 and no humidity.....

If it would stay that way for the rest of the Summer I would be one happy camper!!!

 

 I fixed a few pavers and bricks in the Patio Extension, that I recently did, that had settled from previous rains....

I lifted them up and out, put some sand in to level them and replaced them.....

 

2 of those bricks are from my childhood church that was demolished a few years ago and the other is from Joe's childhood church which was also demolished.....

 

Looks much better....

Then I started the process of stabilizing the pavers and bricks.....

I swept sand in all the cracks of the patio and new walkway to the shed.....

 

Then I "watered" it so the sand would settle in the cracks....

 

I also did this area where I laid pavers for the umbrella base to be set on....

 

And the small walkway to the arbor...

I repeated this process about 6 times.....

Finally, it looked like all the sand had settled and the cracks were full....

I may have to do the process one more time after getting close to 2 inches of rain over the last 2 days....

I also painted this metal Butterfly as it had faded badly from the Sun....

And I moved it over to the other side of the year and sprayed it with a Sealer.....

I also gave the other ones in the back yard a fresh coat of Sealer.....

I transplanted yet another hosta into a pot....

 

This time in the pot in the vintage coal bucket....

 

 

 

And for a pop of color, I placed this pot with another hosta planted in it inside a bright yellow milk crate....

 

 I will let them there for a bit until I decide where to plant them permanently....

By the end of next week, we may be seeing temps. near 80.....

I will wait and see what is forecasted for the following week to see if I will start to buy my annuals...

 

 We had frost last year the week of Memorial Day so you can understand my reluctance to rush out and buy them.....

My Dad always said it was safe to plant in the ground after Mother's Day but in recent years, that has not been the case here in NEPA....

 

 For those of you who follow me on Face Book, you know that my neighbor, who vowed to me that he would stop throwing whole bags of peanuts out to feed the squirrels along with huge pieces of bread, broke that promise to me over the last 2 months....

Again, he was filling this container with peanuts for the squirrels.....

And again, they were burying peanuts in my yard, digging holes after I had just put fresh mulch down....

Sorry the pictures are blurry but I took them through the Den windows as I watched these "Rats with Tails" destroy my yard that I just worked so hard in....

Joe collected all the peanuts and taking a page out of my Mother's play book, put them in a nice little pile right in front of my neighbor's front door...

My mother used to do this with the dog poop that the neighbor's dog from across the street had left in our front yard....

My neighbor called me within a half hour and said he wanted to "Talk to me about that"....

I was NOT as nice as I was last year and asked what does he not understand about NO, he is NOT allowed to do this in our development!!

He stammered and said he wanted to know when I was going to plant my flowers and I told him that did not matter as my yard was all holes!!

 

AGAIN, he vowed it would never happen again......

 

UNTIL.....

 

My neighbor Trish, who bought the house between him and I, tells me that she caught him throwing big pieces of bread out into his yard....

 

Now bare in mind that when Trish bought the nightmare of a house next to me, she found bird's nests in the patio which was covered with bird poop because the birds that were attracted to the bread my neighbor was putting out had gotten into the patio!!!!

 

She had to rent a power washer to clean up the mess caused by my neighbor who insists on feeding the birds and squirrels!!! 

Needless to say, I was furious...

So I watched.....

And guess what?????

Yep! 

 

You can see there is nothing in his yard to destroy and his trees are already dead in the back of his yard....

Not only is he doing it in the mornings BUT he is doing it in the evening....

And attracting these big Grackles who are pooping all over my yard because I have trees in my yard!!!

And the squirrels are once again jumping off the roof on to my potting stand , knocking pots off in the process!!!!

 

Now there is dirt and mud all over the rug as it was pouring rain when I went out to try to clean this up....

 And they also knocked these pots right off the storage chest and the plant stand....

It took me 45 minutes to clean up this mess and now all 3 of my rugs are dirty and muddy!!!!

 

 Make a fool out of me once, okay but do NOT make a fool out of me twice especially since I helped him landscape his front yard last year after he promised to stop.....

 

Turning this mess.....

 

 

Into this!!

 And I sent over homemade baked ziti and lasagna several times along with cookies, fudge and nut roll for the holidays....

And this is how my kindness and generosity is repaid???

By being continually lied to???

Joe and I will be going to a Council meeting to see about the possibility of enacting an ordinance like other area municipalities have against feeding squirrels which can bring in rats to a neighborhood....

Punishments are $300 fines if not obeyed....

I have also talked with our HOA who , AGAIN, will speak with him and I hope that my neighbor Trish will also give him a piece of her mind...

He has been "hiding" since the phone call but I have every intention of telling him the next time I see him that I do not like being lied to, made a fool out of and that our friendship is now over!!

 

And that if there is any more damage to my property and to the flowers that I intend to plant, he will be getting a Bill to pay for damages.....

 

I am so DONE!

 

And people wonder why I am happy in my house, never leaving and not seeing people?????

Geez!!!!

So the saga continues.....

 

Joe bought these at Dollar Tree and I am almost afraid to try to plant them!!!

Any seeds I planted last year were dug up and eaten by the squirrels....

But I will give it a try.....

AGAIN......

Sorry but I had to vent!!

 

I will be taking action against him today...I will let you know how it goes....

 

A few weeks ago, I gave the front porch a good cleaning by taking every thing off the porch.....

Wiping it all down, giving it a good cleaning....

And ran the sweeper over the carpet after sweeping it first with a broom.....

Now I have used this outdoor mat that we bought at Ocean State Job Lot for a mere $10 3 years ago.....

 

 

But after all the rain and humidity that we had last Summer, this side of it was looking a bit bad.....

So I decided to give it a rest and flipped the mat.....

Using this side for this Summer.....

Once again, I am going with a red, orange and yellow color theme for the front porch because it makes such an easy transition into Fall......

 

 

Bare in mind that I still have to plant my pots with red begonias and impatiens, orange and yellow marigolds and coleus which did very well last year......

I do like the look of the other side of the outdoor mat....

Between mine and my neighbor's porch.......

The lighthouse I made from clay pots a few years ago....

Faux plants in a lantern and a set of ceramic frogs that were my neighbor Elly's.....

My neighbor Elly's red milk can......

A wreath a made several years ago.....

I used black and white checked ribbon to make bows for the front porch because of this Welcome sign

You may remember that I painted this Valentine's Clearance piece that Joe bought for 90% off in Big Lot's.....

 

To match my colors on the front porch.....

 

I will be planting something a bit different in flowers this year...

 I will be planting red begonias in the square pots by the pillars this year....

 

 

 

Marigolds in the small round ones and in the black urn that used to house a faux tree out in the back patio, coleus....

We will see how that looks.....

Again, I am able to hang things on the wall because of the weeping mortar....

It looks like I have to give the slate a fresh coat of paint....

A few years ago, I bought new pillows and cushions for the chairs....

The Welcome slate hanging on the railing was made and painted by the Amish Farmer's wife, Ruth, who sets up shop at the convenience store every Friday....

Another lantern filled with faux plants and an angel on the table....

In the corner....

Last year, a neighbor gave me this copper colored vine....

I thought it matches the porch decor well......

We store garden tools in the mail box.....

On this table is a Fairy, a candle and a pot filled with hens and chicks.....

Hopefully, it will not be ungodly hot and humid and rainy like it was last Summer and I get to spend some afternoons out here on the front porch, reading.....

The front porch gets the shade all day up until around 4 pm in the Summers when the Sun swings around tot he front of the house.....

I hope you enjoyed seeing how the porch looks all set up and ready for the Summer, minus the flowers.....

In my next post on Wednesday, I will be sharing what I did in the flower bed under the Living Room window....

And how the flower beds in front of our townhouse look now that they got a fresh topping of mulch....

So I hope you will stop by to visit again on Wednesday!!

Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......

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